It’s a Scandal, Sure, but Hardly a Reason to Undermine the Will of Voters

It takes one kind of brazenness for a man to send lewd pictures of himself to women he knows only through a few on-line chats.

But it takes 200-proof gall to decide that you — and let’s say that you’re a congresswoman from Pennsylvania or California, or an ex-governor from Virginia — know better than the 70,000 people who voted Anthony D. Weiner into Congress.

“Having the respect of your constituents is fundamental for a member of Congress,” Allyson Y. Schwartz, a Democratic representative from the suburbs of Philadelphia, said in a statement. “In light of Anthony Weiner’s offensive behavior online, he should resign.”

Her press release cued a chorus of other Democrats, wailing and gnashing their teeth.

Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, is said to be angry at Mr. Weiner for being a lying weasel when he was asked about the pictures last week. No doubt, had he been a truthful weasel, the result would have been the same: few or no visible friends in Congress.

Yet it ought to be noted that Mr. Weiner is employed by the people of the Ninth District in Queens and Brooklyn, and not by Ms. Pelosi or Harry Reid, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate. Those people have voted him into office seven times. They may never vote for him again, but that’s their call. Elections should not be undone by a press release from Allyson Schwartz.

I called Ms. Schwartz’s office on Thursday to ask why his future in Congress should not be left for his constituents to decide. Ms. Schwartz would not come to the phone; her press secretary would not come to the phone; they also ignored an e-mail. It is easy enough to understand why the congresswoman was repulsed by Mr. Weiner’s behavior. The press release announcing this revulsion was meant to protect her and her party from accusations by Republicans that they tacitly endorsed Mr. Weiner’s acts. In the battle for what passes for the moral high ground, democracy is just collateral damage.

Until Mr. Weiner’s constituents cast their ballots, we will not know if the people he works for want him to remain in Congress. It is not for Ms. Schwartz, Ms. Pelosi or Mr. Reid to decide that people in Queens and Brooklyn are not capable of picking their own representatives.

One day in February, the gossip Web site Gawker posted an item at 2:30 in the afternoon about Christopher Lee, then a Republican congressman from upstate New York, sending bare-chested pictures of himself to a woman on Craigslist. Mr. Lee briefly tried the I-was-hacked defense, but by 6 p.m. that day, his letter of resignation was being read on the floor of the House. John A. Boehner, the leader of the Republicans in the House, said he had not put any pressure on Mr. Lee.

If true, that means Mr. Lee came to that decision on his own. Anyone might want to get out of the public eye to curb humiliation over sexual behavior and the exposure of stupid acts. Mr. Weiner might conclude that he can’t function in Washington, though if, as has been widely reported, he was unpopular even before the Twitter scandal, he has nothing much to lose by going back. A whiff of sulfur might even prompt more invitations for weekend television appearances.

I spent part of Thursday wandering through an old library in Union City, N.J., that has recently been handsomely restored and will open Saturday as the William V. Musto Cultural Center. Mr. Musto had been the city’s mayor for many years until he was convicted in 1982 of racketeering.

As a young reporter, I covered Mr. Musto and his trial for The Hudson Dispatch, and a few days after the guilty verdict, I ran into the newspaper’s publisher, Harry B. Haines. An election was just a month away, and the publisher asked me if Mr. Musto was still on the ballot. He was. Then I asked a question that really was none of my business: Was the paper going to call on its editorial page for Mr. Musto to withdraw? Absolutely not, Mr. Haines said. In his view, it was up to the people of Union City to decide who their mayor would be. As it turned out, Mr. Musto was sentenced to seven years in prison on a Monday. He was re-elected as mayor on Tuesday.

Now, three decades later, Mr. Musto’s name is on a building that holds powerful artwork. The arc of life can be breathtaking and perplexing. Democracy is much simpler; it’s ordinary addition, the arithmetic of the many.

E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com Twitter: @jimdwyernyt

A version of this article appears in print on June 10, 2011, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: It’s a Scandal, Sure, but Hardly a Reason to Undermine the Will of Voters. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe